


The Warrior Queen

by miss_tatiana



Category: Redwall Series - Brian Jacques
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, elaborating on canon, i want hER BACK, she didnt deserve to die ok, this is basically me hurting over warbeak
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-12
Updated: 2017-09-12
Packaged: 2018-12-27 07:42:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12076605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miss_tatiana/pseuds/miss_tatiana
Summary: Matthias looked up at the night sky, speckled with a thousand stars, and when he whispered Warbeak’s name, his voice hoarse, he could have sworn he heard her laughter on the wind.-Set during Mattimeo after Warbeak passes.





	The Warrior Queen

**Author's Note:**

> for redwall fic month week 4. theme- death.

There was something unimaginable about losing someone. Not that it hadn’t happened before- but that was during the war and everything was happening. Then, he was young and the illusion of fighting conjured up by being a newly minted warrior was still in effect. The casualties of the war rolled off him after moments of silence. Even the deaths of Guosim and the Abbot hadn’t impacted fully. He was still in some sort of fantasy then, still blinded by adventure or battle and thinking it almost like a story Methuselah would tell him. Before he died as well, that is. 

“Matthias?” Jess was using her mom voice, the voice she used on Sam. “We need to keep going.”

Matthias shook his head. This was the first death that hit him like deaths should hit. Hard and unexpected. He ran his paw over Warbeak’s wing. 

“Let her warriors take her up into the tree.” Jess had a paw on his shoulder now. 

“No,” Matthias said softly. “No, no, we can’t.”

Jess sighed. “Please?”

“Jess, I lived with her. Her mother took care of both of us like we were brother and sister, she’s not-” Matthias bit his lip. “She can’t just be gone, it’s not….” He sighed. “It’s not fair. She’s the best fighter, the most confident, the least fearful of death, but she’s the one taken. She was so alive-” His voice broke. Death hurt. 

“Matthias. Look at me.” Jess’s commanding tone tore Matthias’s eyes from the body. “This is hard. It doesn’t feel right. But she knew the risks, and she gladly took them. She was as brave an Abbey warrior as any of us.”

Two Sparra descended on either side of their Queen, their beaks almost to the ground in grieving. Their claws grasped her body. 

“And- and Matthias, keep looking at me-” Jess guarded her companion from looking back and watching his fallen friend be lifted towards the branches of the sycamore. “Warbeak wouldn’t want us to weep over her. She’d… she’d laugh at how silly we were being. She knows that we’re wasting time here- she’s probably scorning us right now, from the Dark Forest.”

Matthias let himself smile a little bit at that, because he knew that Jess was right. But then it came to him that he’d never hear her voice again. He would never be called worm-friend, he’d never have an excuse to speak the Sparra tongue. And even colder was the realization that his son could be snuffed out just as easily as Warbeak. Mattimeo was out there, and no matter how much he wanted to stop and lie beneath the sycamore and close his eyes, he knew that he couldn’t. 

He let Jess lead him away from the tree, and he let Basil tell him they were going to make Warbeak proud when they finally found Slagar. He let his companions lead him along for the rest of the day, trailing behind them, lost in thought. He was still struggling to absorb what had happened. 

That night, around a fire that the shrews had started, he heard Basil murmur to Jess that Warbeak’s Sparra had laid her down on a bed of leaves, giving her the closest to a traditional burial that they could muster. That was when the tension and disbelief of the event finally broke like a wave on the shore. Matthias wept, turning away from the fire and keeping his grief to himself. He looked up at the night sky, speckled with a thousand stars, and when he whispered Warbeak’s name, his voice hoarse, he could have sworn he heard her laughter on the wind. 

“This’ll be worth it,” Matthias told her, rubbing the damp fur beneath his eyes. “I promise. I won’t let what happened to you happen to Mattimeo.”

And, he could’ve just been hearing things, but he could’ve sworn that her familiar grunt of approval sounded close enough to touch. 

“I’m going to miss you, Warbeak.” Matthias smiled weakly. He’d finally experienced a death to the fullest, but she was so much more than that, and she wasn’t just a tragedy. The more Matthias thought on it, the more he began realizing that what he’d gotten to feel wasn’t just a death, but a magnificent, powerful, fierce, loyal, loving life that he was lucky to have been close to. He turned his head to the stars once more. “Thank you- thank you for everything.”


End file.
